Brenmark's WonderCon Report..........2011

[Brenmark]

WonderCon 2011

 

Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to make this one as I had a kidney stone surgery several weeks ago, but by the time the convention rolled around three weeks later I was in good health and never felt better. On Thursday Brenda and I packed up and headed up from Fresno over to Interstate 5 to our favorite city by the bay. The drought has been declared officially over in California (our snowpack was like 167% of normal this year) , and the rolling green hills and blossoming trees were a constant reminder of that all the way to the city.

 

 

 

We got to our motel , the Cow Hollow Inn up in the Lombard district on Lombard and Steiner about four in the afternoon. I like the Cow Hollow not only because the parking is free, but there are more restaurants and night clubs in one three block stretch of Chestnut (one block away) than you can imagine. Just across the street on Steiner there is one Italian, one Chinese, and Izzy’s Steakhouse. On the other side are four more. We immediately unpacked , took a short rest, and then headed to our favorite Italian, Parma Restorante, which was right next to the Inn. Man, do I like to eat in San Francisco. The restaurants and clubs were just packed with people in this area, and the weather was fantastic.

 

 

 

On Friday morning I was determined this year to take the bus for two dollars instead of paying twenty dollars for cabs or twenty-five dollars a day for parking around the Mosconi center. It was quite an experience as I hardly ever ride the bus anywhere, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to get around the city. It was fun. San Francisco is one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan cities in the world, and no where is that more evident than on the city bus. At one point the girl next to me was speaking French, and the couple on the right were speaking Chinese. Across the aisle I heard Arabic and Spanish with just a smattering of English from the back of the bus. I was thinking this is what makes our country great, the diversity of its people. Twenty-five minutes later I was dropped off at the Mosconi center and ready to enter the Bizarro world of Wondercon’s 25th annual comic convention.

 

 

I got my badge, and I was ready to see old friends and make new ones. I wasn’t expecting to really buy anything as I had gotten one of my personal grails about a month ago when I bought the story ‘Hop Frog’ by Reed Crandall in an auction. I use to teach that story by Edgar Allan Poe in my high school English class and actually showed my students my old Creepy magazine that had the story so they could see how it was illustrated by one of the greats of the golden age. I was still looking for a nice Bill Everett Submariner page, but if it didn’t happen, I was ok with it as I have had a good year so far collecting original art.

 

I started off the morning with a small, very nice Jeff Jones barbarian from Ted of Superworld. I’m a big fan of Jone’s work, and this piece, although small, will fit nicely in my collection. Then I visited with John of Kookie Enterprises and picked up some nice Mads to just about complete my entire run of that series (506 and counting). I’m only missing a couple of issues from the mid-70s so I’m just about finished with that run. Two of my favorites are the hypnotic cover and the “finger” cover which I think Bill Gaines once said garnered the most irate mail for any cover they ever produced. John is always good for some stories and laughs, and he showed me some very nice old photos of Segar probably from the 1930s. I love those old Popeye strips.

 

 

 

 

 

Later I headed over to Albert’s booth, and he had a half dozen or so Flash Gordons by Mac Raboy. I’ve always wanted an example of Raboy’s work, but six or seven years ago they were around the 300-500 range. Then about three years ago they started hitting the 900 to 1500 range, and I was kind of bummed about that. But Albert had some for 750 to 900, and I made the plunge and bought one with very nice vegetation, space ship, and Flash. Up close I couldn’t believe the detail that Raboy put into his faces. I had a very pleasant Friday seeing old friends and meeting other CGC boardies like Golddust from England and Jeff who were at Marc’s booth House of Comics. I was exhausted by the end of the day so I headed back home (on the bus of course), and Brenda and I had a great meal at Izzy’s steakhouse. The prime rib was excellent.

 

 

Here are a few panels from the Flash Gordon. My poor scanner can't even begin to pick up the detail:

 

 

 

The crowd was manageable, but nothing like Saturday which was sold out. It was shoulder to shoulder around artist alley and the autograph area. Elvira had a huge line for signatures and pictures, and she never looked better. I was walking by one table in the autograph section looking for the soup Nazi guy from Seinfeld when a woman named Marli Renfro started talking to me, and it turns out she was the body double for Janet Leigh in Psycho. She was interesting and had pictures of the shower scene with her in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bechara's Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anthony's Collectibles

 

Anthony's Wall

 

Scott Eder's Wall

 

Scott's Wall

 

 

 

To Be Continued......

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alxjhnsn]

Good stuff. Keep it up.

[Stormsurge]

Thanks for the post and pics - looking forward to the rest

[Brenmark]

WonderCon Part II

 

Artist alley is one my favorite places to be at a con. I was looking for Len Wein whom I haven’t seen in years to get a signature on my House of Secrets #92 and found him right across from Anthony Snider’s art booth. I was also looking for Alex Nino to sign some pages I had , but unfortunately he couldn’t make the show. Oh well, I’ll see him in San Diego. Later I saw Tom Yeates and Al Gordon. I’m not an artist, and I don’t always know how something is drawn, but Tom and Al are both so knowledgeable when it comes to particular artistic techniques. While Tom was drawing, we talked about the dry brush technique that Reed Crandall used in “Hop Frog.” I’m always trying to figure out how something is drawn whether it is wash, stipple, or cross hatching , and Tom always has a great explanation for how things are done. Al Gordon and I discussed whether this Wally Wood page I had from the 60s was all Wally or did some assistants help out. We concluded it was all Wood pencils and inks. The convention wouldn’t be the convention unless you have heard Al play a few tunes on his guitar. I’m also excited that “The Outlaw Prince” is about ready to come out in several weeks. Tom had a copy, and it looks gorgeous. It’s based on the “The Outlaw of Torn” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The original art pages are hand colored, and the graphic novel really turned out faithful to the original coloring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panels from Crandall's 'Hop Frog'

 

 

Wood Art

 

 

 

I then headed over to see Felipe Echevarria.

 

Last year I picked up this watercolor of the Joker:

 

 

This year I wanted a Green Lantern. Felipe's skill with water color is simply amazing, and he often has a panel on water color techniques at the convention.

 

Saturday I also picked a Charles Vess watercolor from Stardust, and that completed my art purchases for Wondercon.

 

My scanner can't handle the full piece so here are some segments:

 

 

You can’t leave the convention without visiting Fred Tamara and his booth of illustrative art. He’s coming out with a beautiful coffee table book later this year with many articles on about 40 of his favorite artists who do magazine cover and interior illustrations, poster artwork, and book covers. Fred always has unique pieces from Henrich Kley, to Charles Gipson, to Bloom County’s Berkeley Breathed. Speaking of Berkeley he was there , and since Opus and Bill the Cat are two characters I really enjoy in Bloom County, I bought Volume 1 at the IDW publishing booth and waited in line to shake his hand and get a signature. Now I need to pick up Volumes 2, 3, and 4.

 

 

 

 

I spent a lot of Saturday taking pictures to hopefully give you a sense of what was going on, and it was crowded. They were sold out, so I figured maybe 30 to 35 thousand people were there. It’s not SDCC, but that’s still a lot of people. There were some great costumes this year. I saw some great EC covers, some wonderful Wolverton artwork at Scott Eder’s booth, and just some fantastic Ditko and Kirby pages at various art dealer booths. And, of course, there were thousands of comics but I no longer collect comics unless something really catches my eye. I also want to check out Game of Thrones which is a new HBO series that is coming out very soon. It looked interesting, and they had a throne there where you could get your picture taken on the throne, and then you could email it to yourself.

 

Saturday was a great day, but I was ready to go home. I wasn’t returning on Sunday so Brenda and I had one more great dinner Saturday night, got to bed early, and headed out the next day back to Fresburg. See you guys at SDCC in about three months.

 

More pictures to come....

 

 

 

 

[Brenmark]

More pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my opinion the scariest costumes there were these pirates:

 

 

 

 

 

Big Ron and Henry

 

Sal of Amazing Adventures and John of Kookie Enterprises

 

 

Ted from Superworld

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the continuation of the Rocketeer.

 

It's always a pleasure to see Gary and MeeYun Montalbano

 

 

For SpeedyD

 

 

 

 

Hans and Mary Kosenkranius of tri-state original art

 

Some cool Green Lantern stuff...

 

 

One of the Suicide Girls..

 

 

 

That's all folks. See you next year.

Mark

 

[Speedy-D]

For SpeedyD

 

 

aw shucks...

[adamstrange]

Thanks for the detailed report!

[aardvark88]

Superb all round report with emphasis on my fave OA!

[Terry Doyle]

Excellent - big thank you!

[HouseofComics.Com]

I really appreciate this report because I just didn't have the time or strength to get around at all this year. Love your Joker commission--really intense--it just pops!

[bocaratondefense]

Thanks for the report and photos.